Why We Bleed
by handful of sky
Summary: Post-"Tomorrow".  Angel's at the bottom of the ocean.  Cordelia's not even on this plane of existence.  How will they find each other, and what price will they have to pay to stay together?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Not my universe, not my characters, not my property...

I started writing this a few weeks after "Tomorrow" first aired in 2002. I wasn't able to finish it before season four started and it got hopelessly Jossed. It languished on my hard drive for some time, and I only recently unearthed it and decided it was worth finishing. For those who don't remember the exact timeline of the episodes, "Tomorrow" was the final episode of season three, and ended with Cordelia ascending to...something...and Angel descending to the bottom of the ocean. It'll run eight chapters total.

This is **not **a songfic, but I did find some lyrics within a Metallica song that made an impact on me as I wrote this:

_I'm digging my way…to something better_

_I'm pushing to stay…with something better_

_I'm sowing the seeds…I take for granted_

_This thorn in my side…is from the tree I planted_

_Oh, it tears me and I bleed…_

from _Bleeding Me_, by Metallica

* * *

Bleed:

1. To emit or lose blood

2. To take or remove blood from

3: To feel sympathetic grief or anguish

_

* * *

_**Why We Bleed**

_Caveat emptor._

Those had to be the truest words in the English language. Oops, not really English, but, hey, they were probably the truest words in _any_ language.

Cordelia didn't remember much of what had been taught in the classrooms at good old Sunnydale High, but she clearly remembered the one bit of Latin that had actually made sense to her at the time: caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.

After all, no one in their right mind would buy Prada on eBay, right? Knockoffs were just about everywhere you looked, and some of them were so good that they even _smelled_ Italian. If you weren't careful, you could end up with a serious case of buyer's remorse. Of course, the closest she'd been to anything by Prada in a long time was standing on the sidewalk and admiring it through the glass.

A tentacle whipped toward her face before she could get her sword up. She reached for the energy that the Powers That Be had given her when she was made partly demon and deflected the blow before swinging the blade for what she hoped would be the last time in this backward dimension. It connected with a meaty thud that sent vibrations all the way up her arms and into the already-sore muscles at the base of her neck. It also sent the Warxlaw demon's last remaining tentacle flying to join the heap of others like it. This was butchery, pure and simple, and, by the way, _not_ exactly what she had signed up for.

Sure, Skip's proposal from the Powers sounded great on the surface and she repeated it under her breath while she finished with the Warxlaw. "You're a great warrior, Cordelia. You're a higher being, Cordelia. You've outgrown this level, Cordelia." Skip had told her everything that, deep down inside, she'd been dying to hear, and she'd firmly ignored the little voice in the back of her mind that insisted that if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was.

As it turned out, though, Skip had omitted one vital piece of information. "Oh, and by the way, you'll still be up to your ass in demon entrails, Cordelia."

She threw her sword down in disgust and it clattered loudly on the rough stone floor. Killing the vile-smelling beasts infesting the monastery was bad enough, but dismembering them afterward was even worse. If it wasn't done properly, the freshly-killed demons gave birth to huge litters of replacements as their bodies cooled. The local monks had all taken vows of pacifism and were helpless to protect themselves from the invasion of the demon hellspawn. If not for her intervention, the whole lot of them would have been wiped out.

Cordy pushed a strand of hair out of her face with a goo-splattered hand. She was tired, hungry, and covered in an amazing variety of alien bodily fluids. If you ignored the gross-out factor, though, it did feel sort of good to be able to help people—even really short, blue, furry people like those now gathered in a loose circle around her. "Well, that's it, guys," she announced. "And after today, even Chucky's got nothing on me in the hack'n'slash department."

The fuzzy blue monks stopped eyeing the still-twitching corpses just long enough to look at her blankly.

"Never mind. Not as funny if I have to explain it," she said. A stray tentacle wrapped itself around her ankle and the boot leather began to smoke as the acidic slime ate into the hide. She stomped on the tentacle firmly and it finally uncurled and laid limply against the flagstones. "Okay, please tell me this was the last one. My sword is duller than _Dawson's Creek_, and I'm starting to get an Excedrin headache."

The oldest and tallest of the monks, and the only one with a beard, stepped forward and bowed deeply. She'd secretly named him Papa Smurf, but she was having a hell of a time figuring out whether or not there was a Smurfette anywhere in the bunch, and it would probably be rude to ask.

"That was indeed the last one, our beloved St. Cordelia the Magnificent, may you live forever and ever."

Cordelia instantly adopted her award ceremony pose and tried to look both gracious and imperious at the same time. There was no point in letting all of those hours spent in front of the bathroom mirror go to waste, right? "Well, I don't know if I'm too keen on the forever part—I know this guy that's been there and done that and is carrying some serious emotional baggage as a result—but I appreciate the thought."

"Nevertheless, we are grateful for your assistance." The other monks started beating on each others' backs enthusiastically, which she figured was this place's version of a round of applause. "May we provide you with some small token of our gratitude? Perhaps a carbon polymorph to adorn your ridiculously slender throat?"

The Powers that Be had somehow made her capable of understanding and speaking the native language of every place she visited, but there was still a lot that got lost in translation. "A carbon polymorph? Gee, thanks, but I don't think I've been vaccinated against those. I know—do you guys maybe have a Godiva around here, or, you know, anything even remotely chocolaty? Honestly, even a Snickers sounds good at this point."

"Ah, our champion hungers." Papa bowed again. "There will be much feasting and rejoicing in your holy name. I will have a banquet in your honor prepared immediately." He leaned over to pick up one of the severed demon parts and hoisted it over his shoulder, totally ignoring the stream of yellow goo that still spurted from the cut end. "Come, brothers." He gestured to the other monks. "We go to the kitchens to prepare the feast for our savior." The others all picked up various drippy pieces of formerly living hellspawn and headed down the corridor after him.

"I'll catch up with you in a minute," she called after them. "I just need to, um, clean my sword!" As soon as they rounded the corner, she looked anxiously around the stone walls of the monastery. "Skip!" she whispered urgently. "Skip, damn it, get me out of here now!"

Her guide to the higher planes and alternate dimensions appeared in the form of a large, gray, armor-plated demon. "You're sure you don't want to stay for dinner? I hear these guys make a twice-baked Warxlaw surprise that's just to die for."

"Fine, then you stay and eat it," she snapped. "You'd just better thank your lucky stars that there was a Taco Cabana in the last dimension we visited or you'd be dealing with one cranky champion right about now."

"Which would make you different in what way?"

She rolled her eyes. "Very funny, but don't quit your day job just yet." Since he was the only being that she saw on a regular basis, he tried to accommodate her need for some occasional verbal sparring. "Oh, wait, I guess I am your day job. Sucks to be you, huh?"

"Not at all, Cordelia." He picked up her sword and started cleaning it with a rag he pulled from a pouch on his belt. "You know that it's a privilege and a great responsibility to serve as your guide."

He actually seemed somewhat sincere, so she relented. "Look, I'm sorry Skip. I know that what I'm doing here is important."

It was something she kept telling herself too, but she was becoming increasingly convinced that she'd screwed up big time. Angel had to be frantic by now: her apartment empty, the Groosalugg gone, her car deserted on the highway. If she knew him, he was working all hours, brooding, not taking care of himself, and then brooding some more. How many legitimately helpless people would have no one to turn to with Angel Investigations derailed in the search for someone they'd never find on Earth? Crap, crap, crap.

It probably didn't help matters any that she'd taken the visions with her when she left. At least, she guessed she had. She hadn't actually passed them on to anyone on Earth, but she sure as hell hadn't had any since her ascension to…to…whatever you wanted to call where she was now. The visions had always been a guide of sorts—a way to figure out who was in trouble and needed help—but now she had Skip. She didn't know if he had visions of his own, or if he got work orders from the PTB, but he always brought her to a place where her services were desperately needed.

"Important doesn't even begin to cover it," Skip insisted. "One of the brothers that you saved today is going to invent a chemical energy storage device that'll revolutionize this dimension and bring huge advancements to their civilization."

"You mean I saved all these guys so that one of them could invent the battery? Well, gee, I sure hope future generations will appreciate their Gameboys and remote controls."

"Oh, they will, and those diamond-based batteries will last for generations."

"Diamond-based?" She suddenly remembered her conversation with the monks. "Then the carbon polythingy they offered me—"

"Yep." Skip chuckled and she started involuntarily as the harsh sound echoed eerily through the stone passageway. "This planet's lousy with them. Most of the gems they mine around here are about the size of golf balls. But hey, hard work is its own reward, right?"

So she'd chosen dead demon du jour over diamonds. She tried hard not to pout. "Well, I guess we saved some lives today, anyway. Which one was the inventor guy?"

"The one that looked like Papa Smurf."

Her jaw dropped. "You know about the Smurfs? But you're a, a…"

Skip cocked his armored head to one side and sighed softly. "Big, scary demon?"

She nodded. "Well, yeah, pretty much. No offense."

"And just how exactly do you think big, scary demons begin their lives?"

"Um, as little baby demons?"

"Right, and lots of little demons like cartoons as much as the next sentient beings, okay?" He tucked the rag back into the pouch and removed a whetstone, which he then started running along the edge of the blade.

"Okay, defensive much. Just don't tell me that you have a thing for Barney too, or I'll have to assume that you're evil incarnate."

"You know about Barney?" He looked shocked.

"Sure I do. Purple dinosaur costume, cute kids singing stupid songs—"

"Then you _don't_ know." He nervously cast his pinkish eyes all around them before leaning down and whispering, "It's not a costume, the songs have evil subliminal messages, and he has spies everywhere. The Powers are having a hard time finding someone powerful enough to take him down."

"Oh, my God," she said breathlessly. "Are you serious, Skip?"

"Of course not," he laughed loudly, "but that'll teach you to mock my choice of childhood entertainment."

"Dumbass." Cordy slugged his shoulder hard, and only her glowy blue power prevented her from bruising her hand on his armored plates. She leaned down and surveyed the damage to her new zrang-skin boots, a gift from the last beings she had helped. "You know, Skip, I'm not sure if I would have agreed to become Secret Agent Girl for the Powers that Be if I had known exactly how much demon goo I was going to come into contact with."

"Comes with the territory, babe, but, for what it's worth, you're doing great. The head honchos are really happy with you." He handed her back her sword, now clean, sharp, and ready for action.

She sheathed it before straightening up and reaching for her inner power source again, letting it envelop her body for a few minutes. When she let it fade, all the dirt and demon ick that had covered her outfit had vanished. "Does that mean they'll let me go back to L.A. for a visit?"

"Wouldn't count on it." He turned to face the stone wall of the chamber and began the series of incantations necessary to create a dimensional portal.

"When, Skip?" She resisted the urge to stomp her feet like a frustrated two-year-old. "Am I going to go dimension-hopping with you for the rest of my natural life?"

The rock at the center of the wall began to shift and swirl in a slow circle that broadened bit by bit as they watched. "Your life is anything but natural, but it's not my place to tell you anything except where you're going next."

"Look, you're Mr. Portal Guy, you've got a direct link with the powers, you're plenty strong, so why aren't you the champion getting in the thick of things and getting the job done?"

He waved his hand and the portal's surface shimmered and became silvery and reflective, although still a little swirly around the edges.

"Look."

She didn't need to. "It's a mirror, Skip. You may find it a little hard to believe, but I've seen one before."

"Humor me." His clawed hand took hers gently and he pulled her to stand next to him. "Look, and tell me what you see."

She gave in with what little grace she could still muster. "Okay, I see a hottie with a sword and a serious need for some time off, and a big, gray, horny demon."

He rumbled indignantly, "I beg your pardon."

"Oh, come off it. You _so_ know what I meant."

"All right. Suppose the two of us show up together, oh, pretty much anywhere. Which of us do you think is going to get the heroine's welcome, and which is going to have sharp, pointy things thrust at him?"

So the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. "Great. So the Powers weren't really interested in my abilities, then. They just wanted a pretty face and a nice ass to keep the natives happy."

He shrugged. "Well, there are a few dimensions where the locals would welcome me with open arms while cowering and shrieking in horror at your ugliness, but we're keeping you away from those."

"Gee, thanks," she muttered.

"It's more than your appearance, you know," Skip insisted softly.

When she refused to look up at him, he crouched down to her level. "You have heart, the soul, and the mind that they were looking for too."

She still wasn't convinced. "Did they actually tell you that, or are you just covering for their sorry asses?"

Before he could answer, a low gonging noise came from the kitchen level of the monastery. "Let me guess," she said. "Is that the dinner bell?"

"Right the first time," he agreed.

"In that case, you're off the hook as long as you can get us out of here before they come looking for me." She bolted for the portal. "Just tell me that whatever we have to do doesn't involve tentacles."

"No tentacles, I promise," he grinned.

As she stepped in, she heard him say, "How do you feel about maggots?"

She tried to turn around, but the portal had already pulled her in too far. She was sure he was joking, but whatever her next job entailed, maggots or not, it had to be better than this one, right? Oh, dear God, please let her be right...

**End of Chapter 1**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Never owned them, never will.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

The ale had likely addled his wits a bit, but Liam knew without a doubt that the lady was the finest creature that he had ever laid eyes on. There was precious little light in the alley, but it was enough to bring a glow to her fine, creamy skin and to make her hair shine like spun gold. He wondered how much more glorious she might be in full sun. If he didn't approach her now, he might never know. He found the thought intolerable and quickly closed the distance between them.

Perversely grateful that he hadn't had the coin for enough drink to thicken his tongue or dull his wits, he engaged her in small talk. When she didn't rebuff him outright, he began to wonder just how far she would allow him to take her. As he considered the possibilities, she grandly offered to show him the world. He would've been happy with a kiss, but there was something so sure and so confident in her manner that he knew that she meant exactly what she said. And what did he have to lose?

"I'm not afraid," he told her. "Show me. Show me your world."

The pain was nothing compared to the weakness, to the horrible _draining_ sensation as his life ebbed so quickly that he could do nothing but gasp as he fell to his knees. Then she grabbed his head and pulled it to her bosom, to the blood welling up between her breasts. The droplets of blood on her chest looked like black pearls, and he experienced a strong sense of deja vu. This had happened before, he knew it had. He knew exactly what would happen if he drank, but this body was failing and he wasn't ready to die.

The blood was cold and bitter, but he sucked at it all the same. His thirst was raging now, and blood was the only thing that would satisfy it. His heart, which had been hammering in his chest, skipped first one beat and then another. It finally stopped altogether and was replaced by a faint buzzing noise in his head. He tried to ignore the sound, but as he fed it grew louder and louder still until it drowned out all his other senses. He tried to clap his hands over his ears, but his arms refused to budge from his sides. In a full-blown panic, he thrashed wildly and the alley's cobblestones and stone walls gradually faded from view and were replaced with thick sheets of steel and plexiglass.

He realized with a start that he was no longer Liam, but Angel, and the weight of his identity came crashing back down upon him with all the force of the far-distant breakers on Point Dume. If his circumstances were any less dire, he might have found some amusement in the fact that Darla had imprisoned him in this body much the same way that their son had imprisoned him in this watery tomb. The incessant buzzing that had brought him back to consciousness gradually faded as the speedboat far above him moved away from the area.

As Angel tried to clear the residual cobwebs from his mind, he became aware of a new sound: the low grunting of a pod of gray whales. They were moving in his direction, and, after a few more minutes, he could hear the slow, steady pumping of their giant hearts. Beating hearts meant blood, and knowing that they were so close and yet totally out of his reach was maddening.

How much blood was in a whale, anyway? Fred would know. There had to be enough to satisfy his thirst and bathe in the rest. enough to help his body heal, enough to stave off the hallucinations. Just one whale wasn't too much to ask, was it? He pulled at the cables that pinned his wrists to the back of the submerged steel box one more time. After thousands of previous attempts, there was still no slack, no give, and no way out.

Still, he had to believe that he would find a way out eventually, and, when he did, he and Fred would have lots of things to talk about. She was the only one of the others that might have some idea of what he was going through now. She'd been completely alone in Pylea, too. And she'd lived by herself in a cold, dark place. At least she'd managed to find food, although not much of it from the look of her.

Yeah, he'd have to remember to ask her about the whales. He could imagine how the conversation would go. She'd probably giggle at first and then go all serious and say, "Oh, Angel, everyone knows that the average gray whale's got about 63 gallons of blood. The average human's only got about one and a half, which means I've probably got about one, but it's all yours if you want it. You do want it, don't you?"

Of course he did, and he wept with relief at the gift she was offering him. "You don't know what this means to me, Fred."

"Hey, you saved me in Pylea, remember?" she murmured into his ear. "I'm just returning the favor."

He tried to be gentle, but she still flinched a little as he buried his fangs in her throat. Her blood hit his belly about the same time that something hit the back of his neck hard and drove him to his knees. Fred slumped to the floor as Angel looked up to see Connor standing above him, holding a crowbar.

"I don't think so," Connor said softly. "My father was right about you. You kill everything you touch. Not any more, though. I put you down, deep down, and I'm going to make sure you stay there." He swung the crowbar in a vicious arc that caught Angel under the chin and snapped his head back against—

The box. Oh, the damned box.

He grunted and winced at the pain spreading across the back of his skull. The hallucinations were getting increasingly hard to separate from reality, and a growing number of them featured his son. He didn't know if he was angrier with Connor for believing that he'd killed Holtz, or for keeping him from Cordelia just when they seemed on the verge of...of... _something_.

Connor couldn't know how stubborn Cordelia was, or how persistent. Just how worried was she by now, and what danger was she putting herself in by trying to find him? If Connor hadn't hurt her in some way, she was surely still looking for Angel, visions or no. And if he had, blood be damned, there was going to be a reckoning when Angel got loose.

Gunn and Fred would help, of course, but if anyone could find him, it would be Cordy. Even she had to have her limits, though. If she didn't have a vision, if they couldn't find any other clues to go on, when would she finally decide to cut her losses and go back to acting or modeling?

_Never_, a voice in the back of his mind insisted.

He wished he could believe that, but each passing day made it more difficult. He'd kept track of time as well as he could. He couldn't see the sun, but his body knew when it rose and set. He finally lost count somewhere around day 26 and guessed that about two or three more weeks had passed since then. There were simply too many other distractions at this point: the hunger, the hallucinations, the maddening itch of the never-quite-healing knife wound in his side, the occasional frustrating sounds of whales and fishing boats, and, oh yeah, the hunger.

Even when he had been living a hand to mouth existence in a dreary alley in New York, there were always plenty of rats for the taking. When he was desperate, he had taken an occasional cat or two as well. They weren't exactly good, but they were still mammals, and their blood warmed his belly on cold winter nights when his shoes were full of icy slush.

Those days of relative plenty were gone now, and his higher brain functions were starting to go. It was just a matter of time now before he totally lost his already tenuous grip on reality. He searched his mind for something to focus on. Maybe poetry. Poetry was good, right? He knew lots of it from memory, too. Frost? Too cheerful. Dylan Thomas? Too depressing. Poe? Too macabre. Yeats, then.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,

The blood-dimmed tide…

The blood…

…was everywhere: splashed on the walls, dripping from the ceiling, pooled on the floor in huge, slippery patches.

Angel closed Gunn's sightless eyes and tried to avoid getting his feet tangled in the dead man's entrails. Fred had fallen nearby, and he tried to brush her long, brown hair out of her face before realizing with a start that her head was facing the wrong way around.

There was a crunching, splintering sound under his foot and he lifted it to find what was left of Wesley's glasses. Wes himself was a few feet away, sitting with his back to a wall. He looked puzzled, as though he was having a hard time understanding why there was a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest.

What was left of the Groosalugg was scattered throughout the room in pieces no bigger than a phone book.

So much death, so much destruction, and over it all, the rich, heavy scent of blood. It made Angel giddy, nauseous, and hungry all at once. He himself hadn't been hurt too badly in the assault: a deep puncture in his calf and a gash across the top of his wrist. The wounds burned a little, but they would close soon enough. He'd live, if you could call it that, to fight another day.

When he finally found Cordelia, he knew instantly that he'd be the only one. Unlike the others, she was still breathing when he found her, but she'd been badly bitten. The huge wound in her neck was oozing sluggishly as he dropped to his knees beside her.

"Angel." She was extraordinarily pale, and her hands trembled as she reached for him.

"I'm here, Cordy." His chest tightened painfully as he saw that her eyes were losing focus. She had another minute left, maybe two.

"Any chance you can...kiss it...and make it...better?" she gasped.

He gathered her into his arms and kissed her gently, thoroughly, in a last-ditch effort to convey the feelings he couldn't bring himself to show her while she still lived. Tears ran down his face and mixed with her blood, and when he lifted his head and licked his lips, the taste was bittersweet. "Is that better?"

"Lots." She used the last of her strength to bring his hand to her mouth. She brushed his knuckles with her lips, and then, without warning, clamped her mouth over the still-open cut on his wrist. Oh, no, no, no. He realized what she was doing and tried to pull his hand away, but it was too late. She was dying, and she'd fed from him and his shoulders shook with the force of his grief.

Her eyes glazed over as she released her grip on his hand and mumbled her last words before she became a monster. "S'okay, Angel. Now we can be together forever…"

...forever…

"...You get to live—forever." And then Connor smiled and closed the lid on—

The box.

Angel roared and thrashed violently against the cables. Oh, hell, that one had fooled him badly. He could still taste Cordelia's blood in his mouth and he tried to muster up enough saliva to spit and rid himself of the lingering illusion before taking in a deep, shuddering lungful of air that stank of steel and sweat and fear. He didn't need the oxygen, but the human body was conditioned to breathe deeply in response to physical effort, and old habits died hard.

He let his head loll forward and tried to ignore the raw, burning pain in his wrists and the cool, slippery wetness that he felt in the palm and fingers of his hands. He'd lost a lot of muscle over his chest and thighs, but they were still hopelessly pinned. The cable across his belly and his forearms felt a little looser now, and he pulled against it again and again until the muscles of his upper arm and shoulder felt rubbery and weak from the effort.

He took another breath as he prepared himself to try yet again and, as he did so, he caught another scent: the coppery tang of fresh blood. It didn't matter that it was his own; his stomach lurched in response and a thread of saliva spilled from the corner of his mouth and ran over his chin.

God, he was worse than one of Pavlov's damn dogs.

He pulled at his arm again, focusing on the pain in an attempt to ignore the rumblings from his empty belly. Six times, ten, fifteen, and then he felt a mist of cool droplets against his face as his hand flew upward so violently that it nearly struck his own nose.

Hell, yes. "Free at last, free at last..." he croaked with a voice roughened by thirst and misery. After struggling for a few more minutes, he had the other hand free too. He licked the blood from his hands and wrists greedily, thoroughly disgusted with himself but totally unable to stop until long after the wounds had reluctantly stopped bleeding. He could feel twilight approaching. If he could break loose of the other cables quickly, he might be able to reach the shore by this time tomorrow.

He wrapped his hands firmly around the cable strapping his shoulders down and pulled experimentally. It didn't budge. He pulled harder. Still nothing. He felt his face change as he let out a primal roar of rage and strained against his bonds. Minutes passed and he flayed the skin from his palms as he fought futilely, but his body finally called it quits as a massive head-to-toe cramp seized him. He'd been without food and exercise for too long, and his reserves were shot.

He sagged helplessly against the restraints as the white-hot pain wracked his body for most of forever before gradually ebbing away. He had given everything he had, and it hadn't been nearly enough. Angel let his human face come back as he caressed the glass face of his crypt longingly. Even wire-reinforced plexiglass had to be weaker than steel. He wanted to lash out and smash it with his fists just to have the satisfaction of seeing it break, but what good would it do him now? How ironic was it that by the time he lost enough mass to squirm free of one of the cables, he no longer had the strength to break the others?

He began to laugh at the absurdity of it—a hearty, full-bellied laugh that, after several minutes, turned into a half-hearted chuckle and then, much later, an increasingly shrill whine. He shoved his forearm into his mouth and buried his teeth in the leather of his jacket sleeve in an effort to stop the scream that was building in his gut. Another cramp ripped through him, and his body responded instinctively to the pain. Sharp fangs sank through his jacket and his shirtsleeve and into the flesh of his arm. He whimpered with frustration, but it was a long time before he lifted his head again.

**End of Chapter 2**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Never owned 'em, never will.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

The portal began to swirl with the blue and green colors that usually meant she was going to arrive somewhere near a body of water. As it started to solidify, Cordelia checked her current wardrobe: black leather pants, her good boots, and a simple white cotton blouse. It was an outfit that was comfortable, practical, and, most importantly, fashionable in most dimensions. "What's the sitch this time, Skip?"

"Oh, a champion got himself into a whole lot of trouble and is starting to think about doing something stupid. It's up to you to help him out."

Well, this one sounded promising, anyway. Strong, manly champion in need of a little tough love, no mention of entrails. Who knew what direction this could take? "Great. So let's get going already."

He held up a warning hand. "There's something you should know—"

She'd already endured countless lectures about personal responsibility and the fine art of not pissing off the natives that she was trying to help. Surely this world wouldn't be significantly different. "Time's wasting, Skip!" She stepped across the threshold. "I'll figure it out as I go along."

The air shimmered around her and she found herself standing on a cliff by the sea. Cordelia took an appreciative sniff of the salt air. A few meters away, back turned to her, a small, slim figure stood perilously close to the edge of the sharp drop into the ocean.

There was a small lurch beneath her feet as time started again. "Don't do it!" Cordelia called out. "I know things must look pretty rotten right now but—"

The young man jumped at the sound of her voice and whirled to face her, crouched defensively.

"Oh my God…" Her voice died in her throat and she just stood there, dumbstruck. The champion she'd been sent to help was Connor.

He straightened up slowly and lowered the ten-inch blade that had seemingly grown from his hand. "Cordelia." His voice was weary and resigned. "I've been waiting for you."

His hair was totally messed up and he looked hungry. Okay, maybe those were nothing new, but his clothes were ragged and filthy, and that definitely was. There was no way Angel would've let his kid run around looking like a bum. What the hell had been going on while she was gone?

"I—I've been away," she stammered. "There was so much that I had to do…" Her mouth was suddenly unbearably dry, and when she spoke again, her voice cracked. "I'm so, so sorry that I wasn't here when you needed me."

"It doesn't matter." He tossed the knife at her feet. "When you disappeared, I knew it was just a matter of time before you came back for me. I won't fight you. I just want it to be over."

Royally confused and afraid to hear the answers, Cordelia had to ask anyway, "What the hell are you talking about, Connor, and what do you want to be over?"

"Everything." His eyes were bleak. "I tried, but I can't live here any more." His voice hardened with anger. "Now do what you came here to do and kill me before I change my mind!"

She blinked away her tears and forced herself to answer calmly. "Connor, sweetheart, why on earth would I want to kill you?"

He shook a long shock of hair out of his eyes. "Isn't that what people are supposed to do when someone hurts a member of their family? Don't you want to kill me for what I did to Angel?"

"Angel? What's Angel got to do with this, and where is he? He would never let you…" she left the words unsaid. "Where is he, Connor?"

"You really don't know?"

"I really don't and I think you'd better tell me right now."

He shrugged and gestured vaguely toward the ocean. "Out there somewhere."

There was nothing on the water. No sails, no boats, just rolling waves as far as the eye could see. Her heart tightened painfully in her chest. "Oh, my God. You staked him and scattered his ashes at sea."

"No, no," Connor protested. "He's still alive, I guess. He's...under. Deep. Chained inside a box."

Her mouth dropped open with shock. "Connor, why would you want to do something like that?"

He refused to look at her. "I thought he killed my—." He stopped abruptly and started over. "I thought he killed Holtz."

"Angel would never—"

"I know that now!" His face was flushed with anger and his eyes rolled wildly. He took a deep breath and moderated his tone. "I know, but Justine told me Angelus killed him, and I believed her. I saw the body, and I knew what I had to do. At least, I thought I did."

His toe nudged a leather-bound journal that was lying half-buried in the sand at his feet. "She and I started hunting together, after. Vampires, mostly, but any other demon that got in our way. One was too fast for her. She told me about the book just before she died. It says that she was the one who killed Holtz." His face twisted with anger. "I wish she was still alive, so I could kill her myself."

So much pain, so much hatred, and so much loss in such a short life. How much of this could have been prevented if she'd stayed in L.A. instead of vacationing with Groo in Mexico? How different would things be now if she'd told Skip that nothing he could offer her could transcend her love for Angel? And how much more time was she going to waste on what ifs while Angel starved? They could play the blame game later, but there was work to be done now, and quickly.

"How long has he been down there, Connor?"

"Since the night you were supposed to meet him on the beach."

Okay, that was less than helpful. She worked when she could, rested when she had to, and not once while she was away had she ever seen a clock or a calendar that looked even remotely like Earth's. "Time worked differently where I was. Has it been a few days, or a few weeks?"

"I don't know exactly." He picked up the journal and handed it to her. "She dated her entries."

Cordelia grabbed the book. Sand flew from the pages as she quickly leafed through it for the final entry. She swallowed convulsively as she read the date. Oh, dear God. He'd been in the box for two and a half months, maybe even more. "How long ago did she die, Connor?"

"I know that one. Eight days ago."

Closer to three months, then. And Angel was still down in the dark, cold and hungry, and so very, very alone. And the Powers That Be had her rescuing Smurfs just because they were on the verge of developing Duracells.

"Skip!" She was _way_ beyond pissed now, and he must have known just how much because he didn't show. "Damn it, Skip, you'd better get your scaly hide back here and start explaining, because this is total bullshit!" He stayed hidden. Screw him, then. This was one world where she could get around perfectly well without a demon guide, thank you very much.

That left her with Connor. She kicked his knife over the drop-off and clamped down hard on the urge to kick its owner over along with it. The kid had apparently inherited Darla's flair for the melodramatic, because, with his toughness and reflexes, she was pretty sure the fall alone wouldn't have done him in. Before she could be tempted to test the theory, she grabbed his collar firmly and said, "We are going to find him, and when we do, you are going to get down on your knees and beg for his forgiveness."

"Whatever." He drooped sulkily.

Well, it was nice to know that something things never changed. "Are Gunn and Fred still at the hotel?"

"Last time I checked, but it's been a while."

They were going to need all the resources that Angel Investigations could muster. "Well, we need to go back there now. Have you got a car?"

He nodded. "It was hers, but she taught me how to drive it."

After he led her back to the nondescript sedan, she rode shotgun so that she could read the journal on the trip. She could almost feel sorry for Justine when she found the entry that had sent Connor into a tailspin. It was just as he'd said. Holtz had begged for his death and she'd given it to him and then spent the next two pages pouring out her guilt.

The very next entry was an account of how Connor and Justine had cornered Angel at Point Dume. Cordelia kept her outward emotions firmly in check as she read with increasing horror about how they'd used metal cables to tie him down and then welded the lid onto the box before dumping it into the water.

By the time they got to the city, night had fallen and the city was bathed in bright, artificial light. She reveled in all the familiar sights and sounds of L.A. until they finally pulled up in front of the hotel. Three months, and it barely felt like two weeks to her. What would Fred and Gunn have to say? Well, only one way to find out. Steeling herself, she told Connor to stay in the car before she took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

"You guys miss me?"

Fred looked up so abruptly from the reception desk that her glasses slid down to perch precariously on the end of her nose. "Cordelia!"

Gunn's head and shoulders emerged from behind the desk as he lifted a cardboard box and plunked it on top of the counter. He had a big smile, but it looked kind of forced and wrong on his face. "You look thirsty. Join us in a drink?" Fred quickly turned to grab a bottle of water from the minifridge in the office.

"Uh, yeah, I guess." They were acting totally weird, but she really was thirsty, so Cordelia twisted off the lid and took a long pull before recapping it and setting it back on the counter again. Fred jumped up and down, clapped her hands, and squealed with joy, and she and Gunn exchanged significant looks. Suddenly, everything clicked.

"Oh, my God. This is holy water, isn't it? What do you guys take me for? A vampire? Hello! Check out the tan." She extended her arms and pirouetted.

"Not anymore." Gunn came out from behind the desk, spread his arms open and grinned. "Now what do you say you come on over here and give me a hug, girl?"

He was warm and solid in her arms. A moment later, she felt Fred's arms around her too and they all clung to each other in a big, happy group hug for the next few minutes. Cordelia hadn't realized just how much she missed everyday human contact. When she finally let them go, she punched each of them on the shoulder as hard as she could. "And that's for thinking I was evil!"

"Well," Gunn said defensively, "it's been a while since we saw any of you. Angel was heading out to meet you and the man definitely had a happy on."

"He was _whistling_," Fred added. "Can you blame us for being worried?"

"Angel whistled?" she blurted out in surprise. "Isn't that the fifth sign of the apocalypse or something?" Boy, things had gotten weird all right there at the end. But if he was excited about their planned meeting, that had to be a good thing, right? As she started to think about how the scenario might have played out, Gunn abruptly derailed her train of thought.

"So then you two had the big rendezvous at the beach and then neither of you comes in the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. Connor and the Groosalugg disappear too. We've been beating the bushes for months, looking for you. Fred even called Wesley, but the only thing he was interested in looking for was the bottom of a bottle."

Cordy was disappointed, but not really surprised by Wes's refusal to help. Rescuing Angel would probably have gone a long way toward patching up things between all of them, but there was no happy group reunion in the foreseeable future.

"We found your cars," Gunn continued, "got a couple of leads on Connor, but he moved around too much and we were never able to catch—"

"Consider him caught," she interrupted. "He's waiting outside."

They instantly started bombarding her with questions and didn't let up until she wrapped herself in her blue aura and teleported over to her old desk. She looked up just in time to see their jaws drop and decided to take advantage of the reprieve. "Look, you've got questions, I've got answers, but what we don't have is a lot of time. Angel's in big trouble, and it's going to take more than just the three of us to help him."

Cordelia grabbed her Rolodex and carried it over to the phone. She flipped through it hurriedly, found the card she needed, and sent a quick plea to whichever deities might be listening that the private number was still good. It was, and after a seemingly endless number of rings, she was connected to a very grumpy-sounding David Nabbitt.

"David, it's Cordelia Chase. It's so good to hear your voice again," she gushed. "Angel Investigations is in a jam and we really need your help." She knew she was laying it on pretty thick, but, much to her relief, he brightened up immediately.

"Hey, wow, I guess you guys are working on something really important, huh? Well, I'm in Paris now, but I could probably charter a flight back in a couple of hours."

"Well, I'm not sure we'll be needing you in person. I saw an article last year about your investment in an undersea salvage operation. Do you still have that boat you were using to dig up those old shipwrecks?"

"Yes, I still have it," he answered, "and it's yours if you need it. What are you hoping to find? Is it some kind of dangerous artifact, or maybe a mystical sunken treasure?"

Sunken treasure? She didn't want to tell him too much, but she wasn't comfortable with lying to him either. "Well, I don't know if 'treasure' is the right word, but what we're looking for is extremely valuable to me."

"Then that's good enough, I guess. I'll have my people call you in the morning, okay?"

She wanted to argue that time was of the essence, but she knew that they still needed to make other preparations for Angel's triumphant homecoming (and she refused to believe that it would be anything but). "That sounds great. And David? Thanks."

"No problem," he said with genuine warmth. "That's what friends are for."

She hung up the phone guiltily. David was right. Friends were there to support each other and to help when they were needed. She'd known that she was needed here, but she left anyway, and now she'd be dealing with the fallout for a very, very long time. Before her thoughts could descend into a full-blown pity party, she grabbed for the nearest box of Kleenex and dabbed at her eyes. She was here now, and she was going to fix things as well as she could in whatever time she had left before the Powers whisked her off again.

The first order of business was taken care of. The second was finding a place for Connor to stay. The last thing that he needed was to see first-hand the results of what he'd done to his father. And the last thing Angel needed when he got back was seeing his betrayer's face looking at him from the other side of the breakfast table.

Gunn approached her cautiously. "You know, I love a pleasure cruise as much as the next guy, but how is that going to help us find Angel?"

"I'll explain later. Do I still have an apartment?"

"Well, technically, no," he explained. "We paid the rent for you for the first month you were gone, but things have been tight. Your landlord tried to go in and pack your stuff, but Phantom Dennis apparently persuaded him to leave it alone. Then the guy tried to hire us to perform an exorcism, but we couldn't do that to Dennis, even though we don't get very many paying gigs."

"Well, Dennis and I appreciate it," she smiled. "And Connor will too. We need to get him over there and get him situated."

"Cordelia, what—"

"No questions now, Fred." Cordelia hated the sharpness in her voice, but there was still so much work to do, and she was afraid they'd refuse to help if they knew what Connor had done. "And don't ask Connor, either. I'll tell you two everything later, I promise."

Cordelia still had a wad of cash left over from her Mexican vacation with Groo. She'd been saving it to give back to Angel when the time was right. Three hours later, the money was gone, but Connor was living in a freshly cleaned apartment with a fully stocked refrigerator and a stack of videos to tide him over until the cable was turned back on. The other utilities were included in the price of the rent, which was now paid up.

Dennis had been thrilled at her return. He seemed a little dubious (and how weird was it that she was attributing emotions to a ghost) about Connor, but she was sure that he'd do his best to keep Connor home and safe. Dennis ruffled her hair playfully as she headed out the door with Gunn and Fred and she promised him that she'd visit again as soon as she could.

On their way back to the hotel, Cordelia finally started talking. She began by explaining her breakup with Groo and then the extent of her work for the Powers. They were just pulling up in front of the Hyperion again when she finally told the other two about where Angel was, and why. It was all she could do to talk Gunn and Fred out of going back to the apartment to have a friendly "chat" with Connor about respecting his elders, but they eventually relented, deciding that Angel should deal with Connor in his own way.

When they got back inside, Cordelia started some coffee brewing. It felt good to be doing something so simple and mundane again, and she promised herself that if she ever got her normal life back she'd spend a lot more time appreciating the ordinary. The three of them sat down around the big table in the kitchen and started making plans for the next day.

"I say we open the box, pump him full of thorazine, and slap the lid back on," Gunn said.

"I don't want to do that. It's hard to know how he's going to react." Gunn hadn't seen Angel stoned off his gourd on mind-altering substances, but she had, and it wasn't pretty. "Some drugs make him go all grrrr until they wear off and we definitely don't want to deal with that."

Fred, still as skinny as ever, finished the slice of cheesecake that she'd had as a midnight snack and pushed her plate aside. "I understand about using the ship's instruments to look for his crate, but how do we even know where to begin?"

Cordelia showed them Justine's journal. "There are some coordinates in here, so that will be our starting point. Even if these are right, though, it could take a few days. We'd better plan for everything: rope, restraints, taser, everything short of a crossbow. Fred, I need you to get some medical supplies together: bandages, ointment, whatever you can think of. We'll need lots of blood too, the freshest we can get."

They spent the next hour finishing off the coffee, gathering all the supplies that they could lay hands on, and planning for buying the remainder first thing in the morning. Once they had done all they could, they said their goodnights and headed wearily for bed. Cordelia had always had a room at the hotel, although she rarely used it for much more than showering and changing whenever necessary, but she found herself heading for Angel's room instead.

She hadn't spent much time here since the fire, and some part of her still expected the sight of the crib and the lingering scent of baby powder. Instead, she found half-filled cardboard cartons scattered haphazardly throughout the room. Apparently, the files downstairs weren't the only things that Fred and Gunn were boxing up. Angel didn't have much, only the spartan belongings that he'd always had before being a father had complicated his life even more than was the usual case. Cordelia still remembered the sense of loss and defeat that she'd felt when they had packed up Connor's baby's things; there was no way in hell that she was going to leave Angel's stuff in the boxes when he could be coming back as early as tomorrow. She was tired, grubby, and sorely in need of some quality time with Miss Clairol, but she lifted one of the cartons and carefully started putting Angel's things back in place. She was going to find him, and God help anyone or anything that got in her way.

**End of Chapter 3**


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Not my universe, characters, or property.

Thanks for the reviews! I won't be able to post over the weekend, so look for the next chapter on Monday.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

He felt a sensation of movement, a slow, spiraling ascent that ended with a curious bobbing motion. A cool rush of moist evening air bathed him and hands reached in for him. He closed his eyes tightly against the bright lights surrounding him as he allowed himself to be pulled upright. There was a wave of dizziness before a pair of strong arms threw themselves around him and he found his face buried in the crook of his rescuers neck. Without any conscious thought at all, he felt his face change as he bit down hard. Dimly, he heard voices rise in alarm and felt hands grab his arms, but the throat beneath his teeth vibrated softly. "No, don't, it's all right. Let him be. He needs it."

Need? That was hardly a strong enough term to apply to the agony that raced through his body. The questing hands went away and he dedicated himself to the task of soothing his burning throat by swallowing the warm, salty-sweet blood that bathed his tongue. It wasn't entirely human, but it was very close, and, in any case, he wasn't in any shape to discriminate. Its perfume found its way into his nose, heady and rich and intoxicating and he growled softly as he sucked harder. Surprisingly, the dreadful hunger began to subside in just a few seconds.

"That's enough." The voice startled him out of his reverie, and he let his features shift back to his human face as he raised his head to lick at bloody lips. When he saw the ragged, ugly wound on the side of Cordelia's neck, his mouth opened in a grimace of horror and he fell to his knees. A cramp bent him over double and he began to retch miserably.

She immediately sat beside him and cradled his head in her lap. "Easy does it, big guy," she murmured softly, "I can't give you any more of the good stuff. If you lose it, you're gonna be stuck with cold pig's blood." A soft blue glow surrounded her. Its warmth trickled into his midsection and the nausea subsided just as the glow flickered fitfully and then died out altogether.

"Should have stopped it," he gasped painfully. "You shouldn't have let me—"

"What, lie here on the bottom of the ocean for like, three months?" she interrupted. "You're right. I should never have let it happen. And rest assured, I'm going to have a little talk with the Powers that Be. As a matter of fact, I've got a whole list of grievances to air, starting with the lack of any kind of pension plan."

There was more, but the words were drowned out by the sound of the motor as the fat little boat turned and made for shore. He fixed his gaze on her lips in order to avoid looking at her neck and, before they had gone even a mile, his consciousness fled in a wake of guilt and despair.

He woke to find himself lying atop his old bed in the Hyperion. As he lifted his head from the pillow to get his bearings, a familiar face appeared above his and brown eyes full of anger, pity, and more than a little fear met his own.

Gunn straightened up again before calling across the room, "He's awake, Cordelia."

She padded in from the bathroom and Angel closed his eyes and gritted his teeth when he saw the bloodstained collar of her shirt. Her hair covered her neck; there was no visible mark, but he knew it was there all the same. He forced himself to open his eyes and to look at her again, desperately searching her face for—what? Forgiveness, anger, sympathy? But her expression revealed nothing that he could interpret.

"Gunn," Cordelia began awkwardly, "I think—"

"It's cool," he interrupted. "You two got things that need straightening out." He reached into his pocket and produced a taser. Angel flinched at the sight of it, but neither of them seemed to notice.

"I won't need that," Cordelia insisted.

"Maybe you will and maybe you won't." Gunn grabbed her hand and pressed the gadget into it. "I don't know what kind of mojo the Powers gave you to work with, but if he tries to pull another stunt like he did earlier, this baby will knock his lights out pronto." He took another look at Angel and shook his head sadly. "If it don't kill him first, that is." He was almost out the door when he stopped and turned back one last time and said, "Fred and I are gonna hang out in the lobby for a while. You need anything, you call us, right?"

"Right," Cordelia answered softly as the door closed behind him.

She walked slowly toward the bed and sat on the edge closest to Angel before deliberately placing the taser on the nightstand, well within his reach. Her free hand reached to ruffle his hair gently and her eyes filled with tears as she said simply, "Hey."

"Hey." He blinked furiously to keep back his own tears.

"Oh, I didn't think. It's too bright in here, isn't it?"

She tried to stand, but he caught her hand and held it fast between his own. How many times now had a dream-Cordelia appeared before him, whole and healthy, only to disappear or perish moments later? He wanted to fill his senses with her, to drink her in before she vanished, but he suddenly caught the scent of her spilled blood. He released her guiltily and dropped his arms back to the bed.

"It's okay, Angel. I'll be right back." She turned out the overhead light and lit the few candles he had scattered around the room. She disappeared into the bathroom and he had a fleeting moment of panic until he spotted more flickering lights and realized that she was lighting the candles in there as well. By the time she returned to the bed, she had composed herself again. "Better?"

She was back by his side and that made it all kinds of better, but he still had a hard time believing any of it. "Tell me this is real. Tell me it's not just another hallucination."

She reached for his hand and caressed the back of it with her thumb before lifting his hand to her face and placing a gentle kiss in the center of his palm. He pressed his index finger lightly into her neck, just barely dimpling the skin, and felt the slow, steady beat of her pulse. He'd been fooled so many times before…

"It's really me, Angel. I promise." Cordelia turned her face into his palm so that his hand cupped her cheek. He could feel her warmth and smell her scent: fresh air, blood, salt, and warm, clean skin. He smelled himself on her as well and the effect was disconcerting. Her voice was low and rich and reassuring, and the candlelight brought out little streaks of red in her hair. It was longer now, and both darker and curlier than he remembered.

Hope clashed with fear in his mind. If this was Cordelia, and all his senses insisted that it was, what right could he possibly have to claim her as a friend, much less anything more, after what he had done to her?

"Stop that." Her eyes blazed furiously.

"What—" he began.

"You were about to start brooding."

He opened his mouth to deny the accusation, caught another warning glance from her, and then abruptly shut it again. This had to be the real Cordy. No one else could make him feel like such an idiot with a simple tilt of the head and a carefully raised eyebrow.

"Think you can stand?"

"Yeah." Angel swung his legs to the floor and levered his body up. He was still a little shaky, but he was able to get upright and stay that way.

"Good, because the first order of business is to clean you up. We drew straws to see who was going to get the job and I lost." Cordelia helped ease the jacket off of his shoulders and tossed it at an empty chair. Angel began plucking at the buttons on his shirt, but his fingers seemed to be next to useless.

"Let me help you." He didn't resist as she deftly unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off of his shoulders. When she reached his sleeves, however, the material resisted being pulled away from his skin.

"What on earth?" She looked puzzled. "It's stuck to your skin. I guess we can soak it off," she said.

Soak, as in, submerge in water? No way. "The hell we will," Angel growled as he pulled his arms roughly away from the material that she still held gathered in her hands. There was an ugly ripping noise as the encrusted fabric tore free from his flesh.

She didn't say a word, but her eyes filled with tears again as she took in the dozens of overlapping bite marks covering both of his arms. The oldest ones weren't too bad, but a few of the newer punctures had been broken open again by the brutal treatment. They sullenly began to ooze thin streams of blood that wound their way down to his hands and dripped from his fingers to the carpet. He held his bloody hands in front of him and wiggled his fingers weakly. "I think there's been some nerve damage, but it should start to heal soon."

Unable to deal with the dawning horror on her face, he used the shredded shirt to wipe the blood from his arms and hands, noting as he did so that the holes were starting to knit shut already. His first meal had done him a world of good, but as he remembered where exactly it had come from, he clenched his fists uselessly, overcome by revulsion and self-loathing. He threw the shredded shirt to the floor and forced himself to lift his head and meet her eyes again, ready to face the look of pity and disgust that he knew he'd earned, but her gaze showed only sadness and guilt, although he couldn't imagine why.

She tried to pull him into her arms and his nostrils flared at the scent of her recently spilled blood. Saliva rushed into his mouth and he swallowed hurriedly.

"Don't." He stepped away from her. "I'm—I'm still hungry. Maybe you should go."

"Not a problem." She turned away for a moment, picked up the phone from his desk, and asked Fred to bring up some dinner.

As she put the phone back on the cradle, he approached her from behind and brushed her hair away from her neck. Cordelia stood motionless as he ran a fingertip gently over the horrible bruise and the ragged puncture marks. "I did this. I don't remember much that's real, but I know that I'm responsible."

"It's okay, Angel. It's nothing." She turned away and pulled her hair back over the wound. "I can't tell you how sorry I am about this."

No, it most definitely was _not _okay. It wasn't nothing, either, and he couldn't figure out why she was acting this way. "What gives, Cordelia? None of this was your fault, so why are you apologizing?"

She looked at him sadly. "You suffered, Angel. I can't even imagine just how much. I'm sorry that it took so long to find you."

"I'm just glad you're okay. I had wondered if they had done something to you, too." She nodded and he realized that she was likely aware of who had imprisoned him, but he wasn't ready to talk about that yet. "I knew you were looking, but I figured with the visions and everything, it wouldn't take that long to find me."

She sagged visibly. "That's just it, Angel. I wasn't looking for you. I didn't even know you were missing."

He searched his mind for some kind of explanation and failed miserably. What the hell had been going on in his absence? "On the boat—you said it was three months. How could you not know, Cordy?"

"On my way to Point Dume—to meet you that night—I got an offer I couldn't refuse. Skip came and offered me a job with the Powers That Be. But I didn't know that this—" she gestured at his scarred arms and diminished frame, "had happened. I was rescuing people and fighting the bad guys in other dimensions, while you were—"

"Starving? Hallucinating? Dying?" He was stunned. He'd been worried sick about her and she hadn't even known about his pain.

"Yeah, although luckily not so much of the last one. And they didn't even tell me, and oh my god, I am so pissed at them right now!" She paced around his room angrily, as though to prove her point. "I missed you _so_ much while I was gone. All of you, even Wesley. They wouldn't let me have any kind of contact with anyone here. I kept telling myself that it was worth it, that I was finally doing what I had been destined for. After a while, I even started to believe it."

None of this made any sense. "If the Powers wanted to separate us, then why did they send you back here to find me?"

"They didn't." She bit her lip nervously. "They sent me for Connor."

Angel's fists tightened reflexively on hearing his son's name. "Connor's in danger?"

"No, not anymore. Dennis is watching him. Connor helped us find you, but I thought it would be better if he didn't see you right away."

He hated to admit it, but she was probably right. He had no idea what he would've done if Connor was the first person he'd seen on getting out of the box. "He's got some explaining to do."

"He already explained," Cordelia said. "To me, anyway. And he's even sorrier than you can imagine."

Angel's gaze landed on the taser on the nightstand. "Not as sorry as he's gonna be."

"He was suicidal when I found him, Angel. It's not his fault. Justine and Holtz used him."

That bit of news was familiar, at least. "Yeah, I know. He accused me of killing Holtz before he and Justine locked me in the box."

"Payback's a bitch, and then some." She smiled tiredly. "Justine killed Holtz herself and framed you for it, and a demon got Justine a little over a week ago. Connor didn't learn what really happened until after she died."

Angel struggled valiantly to take in all the information and sort out his feelings. There was no excuse for what Connor had done, but Angel was still alive, after a fashion, and he had himself committed patricide. His feelings for Cordelia were still tougher to sort out, so he studiously turned his mind back to his son. "I still love Connor. I told him that just before they threw me in the water, you know. But I don't want to see him again any time soon. You did what you came for, so it might not be the worst idea for you to leave too."

She made no move to go. "Is that what you really want, Angel?"

His pent-up anger surged and he turned away from her to strike the wall savagely with a closed fist, leaving a smear of blood behind. "Why should what I want matter? The Powers are going to do whatever THEY want, and to hell with anyone who gets in their way." He looked pointedly at the bruise on her neck. "I know exactly what this is now. You feel bad about leaving, so this is how you paid your penance." She didn't bother to deny it. "How can you even think about staying here after I battened off of you like some kind of mindless leech? Part of me wants to do it again, and, this time, I might not be able to stop."

"My powers—" she started.

"Are not enough!" he shouted. He saw her flinch at his tone of voice and continued in a softer vein, "I saw how weak you were afterward. You made a promise to me once, Cordelia, and I expected you to keep it."

Predictably, she was defiant. "I promised to kill Angelus, not Angel, especially not a helpless, starving, pathetic—"

He reached her in two quick strides and grabbed her forearms, pushing her back and away from him until she was pinned against the wall by the weight of his body. He put on his game face and let her take in his golden eyes and wickedly pointed canines for a moment. "I am _dangerous_, Cordelia, and the day you forget that could be the day you die."

Her eyes were wide with astonishment, but still totally devoid of fear. The candlelight flickered in her pupils, and, like the proverbial moth, he was drawn closer by the sight, then closer still until their faces were almost touching. He was acutely aware of the full, soft weight of her breasts against his chest, of the pressure of his pelvis against her belly. He was hard instantly. She was so warm, and he'd been cold for too long. He wondered briefly if her fire would consume him, and decided he didn't care.

"I know you're not Angelus," she said firmly. "And I know you would never do anything to hurt me."

He couldn't trust himself, but she refused to stop believing in him. Shaken by her confidence, Angel let his human features come back as he buried his face in her shoulder and hugged her tightly. He felt the ragged puncture wounds in her neck, wounds that he had put there, and kissed them softly, begging for the forgiveness that she had already offered but that he was too afraid to accept. Maybe finally kissing her would make it all better, just make all the pain and the bad memories disappear. Her neck arched ever so slightly to give him better access. He brushed his lips against the bite a little more firmly, trying to soothe away the sting and he heard her increased heartbeat and felt its vibrations beneath her skin. A tiny moan escaped her and he dragged his mouth upward and along the line of her jaw and then—

"Room Service!" The call was accompanied by a gentle tap on the hall door. The moment broken, Angel quickly retreated to the safety of the bathroom and left Cordelia to deal with Fred's arrival.

**End of Chapter 4**


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Not my characters or universe.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Cordelia held the door open as Fred struggled to maneuver the loaded tray through the doorway. She had genuinely missed Fred, but could the woman's timing have been any worse? Angel had been on the verge of admitting that there was something between them, and not just the obviously hard, throbbing something, and then suddenly—oh, my god, what was that amazing smell? She spotted a pizza box and a Bud Light on the tray along with Angel's blood, and decided all was forgiven.

"Gosh, it's really dark in here," Fred said in a hushed tone. "Well, I guess with Angel's enhanced vision and all and your built-in nightlight, it's no big deal to you guys, but I'd really hate to spill this because we all know how hard it is to get blood out of the carpet, don't we?"

"Boy, do we ever," Cordelia agreed as she helped Fred clear a place on Angel's desk for the tray. She was grateful for the dim lighting. With luck, Fred would never notice the red flush Cordy felt creeping across her face and chest.

"How's he doing?" Fred whispered with a quick glance at the bathroom.

"Okay, I guess. If anyone could handle being in super-solitary confinement for 3 months, he's the guy."

Fred seemed unconvinced. "He may seem okay, but are you sure you don't want someone else here? I mean, you have to sleep sometime. You do still sleep, don't you?"

"It's okay, Fred. Really." Cordy forced herself to sound more confident than she really felt, but she couldn't think of any other way to get Fred out the door. "He's going to be just fine, but it's going to take some time. We'll let you know if we need anything else." Cordelia thanked her and ushered her out the door before she could ask any more questions that Cordelia was in no mood to answer.

She grabbed a slice of pizza in one hand and one of the glasses in the other and took them into the bathroom. Angel all but grabbed the blood from her and gulped it down quickly, the rim of the glass chattering against his teeth. His fingers were still trembling as he refilled the glass from the tap. The blood broke down into watery swirls as it was diluted. Cordelia bit into her pizza with relish—mmmm, tandoori chicken—as he drained the glass of bloody water. Or watery blood. Whatever. And how much did it say about the total weirdness of life as she knew it that watching him didn't even come close to putting a dent in her appetite?

"There's more, Angel," she said around a mouthful of pizza. "You want it?"

He nodded, but went to get it himself, thoughtfully drinking most it while he was still out of her sight. He filled the second glass with water too, drank about half of it, and dumped the rest down the sink. As he set the glass down, he noticed the toothpaste on the counter and reached for it like a man possessed.

His fingers fumbled with the cap, but before she could offer some help, he stuck it in his mouth and ripped it off with a quick twist of his head. He squeezed the contents of the tube directly into his mouth and closed his eyes in sheer bliss. "Oh, man, that's good," he mumbled as he groped for his toothbrush. Over the course of the next five minutes, she finished her dinner as he attacked three month's worth of plaque. When he was done, he gifted her with a broad, beautiful smile. "Better?"

He had no idea. How long had it been since she'd seen him smile like that? It was amazing what a little Colgate could do for a person. Er, vampire. "All kinds of better," she answered, "but you missed a spot, right here." She reached for a stray fleck of foam at the corner of his mouth and wiped it away with her thumb.

Angel quickly captured her hand and held onto it firmly, but gently. He studiously avoided looking directly at her face as he said, "Look, about in there, earlier, I'm sorry. I mean if Fred hadn't come, I mean, look, you can get Groo to kick my ass for that later, not that you ever needed anyone to do that for you."

He was really kind of cute when he babbled, but if anyone ever needed rescuing, he needed it now, and badly. "Angel, stop. Groo's long gone, and if I thought you needed a good ass-kicking, I'd be more than happy to handle it myself."

"Of course you would. I just—". He stopped abruptly as he registered what she'd said. "He's gone? What happened, Cordy?"

"He left. Right before I called you that night."

"Oh, I get it now." He looked disappointed. "You wanted to talk to me that night because you needed a shoulder to cry on."

Maybe now was as good a time as any to try to figure out where they stood. "Isn't that what a guy friend is supposed to provide in the case of a breakup? I mean, that and offer vague promises to hunt down and beat the crap out of the ex-boyfriend?"

He seemed to struggle for a moment before producing another small smile. "I'm a little too late for the whole hunting down and beating up thing, but I've still got a shoulder if you need it."

"And your shoulders are terrific, Angel, even if they're on the grungy side right now, but that really wasn't what I was looking for. I called because I wanted to tell you that things were over between Groo and I, and I wanted to tell you why."

"Oh. So, uh, do you still want to tell me that?"

"Yes, as soon as you're ready to hear it."

He shrugged. "Now is good."

"Later is better," she laughed. "First, you go directly to the shower, do not pass GO, do not collect $200." She gestured grandly at the shiny new fixture he'd had installed after the decrepit old hotel bathtub had been ripped out. It was a fairly ordinary shower stall; glass and chrome, approximately four feet square and eight high.

Angel's body swayed alarmingly as he looked at it. He grabbed desperately at the vanity and one of the glasses shattered as he knocked it into the sink.

"I don't think I can, Cordelia." His voice was panicky. "Not yet, anyway."

"Oh my God, I didn't think." She wrapped an arm around his waist and he leaned hard against her. "It's just a big box, isn't it?" It was stupid of her to not realize what she was asking of him. "What if we leave the door open and put down some towels to catch the spray. Would that help?"

"Maybe." He seemed to calm a little as he thought about the idea. "I'll try."

He seemed steadier now, so Cordelia risked leaving him for a few seconds. She grabbed a stack of towels from the linen closet and threw two of them to the floor in front of the shower before turning the taps on to a comfortably warm temperature.

"Okay then. Do you need any help getting undressed?"

"I think I got it." He looked at her pointedly, so she turned her back as he started to undress. She couldn't resist peeking just a little, though. It had been so long since she'd seen him, and she wanted to fill her eyes with him, even if he was a little on the skinny side still.

He got his socks and shoes off with no problems, but he was having a lot of trouble with the button on his pants. Just as she was about to turn around and offer her help, he swore softly under his breath and simply tore it off. With his back still turned to her, he finished stripping and walked into the shower. A moment later, she heard his fingernails scrabbling against the tile walls. Deciding that modesty was stupid at this point, she turned to help him and found him clinging like a drowning man to the wall-mounted soap dish.

"Angel—" she started.

"It's okay. It's fine." He glanced at her for just a second before snatching up the bar of soap and rubbing it furiously over his chest. As he reached toward his back, the bar slipped from his grasp and skidded across the floor. He bent to retrieve it and managed to pick it up on the third attempt. "See?" he said with his back still turned toward her. "It's okay. I can do this." As he finished speaking, the soap squirted out of his hands again.

It was too much for her. She pulled her blouse out of her pants and started unbuttoning it. A few seconds later, all her clothes were lying in a heap next to his, and she stepped into the cabinet and put a hand on his shoulder. "Scoot over, already."

He flinched at her touch, but he didn't turn around. "Cordelia, you shouldn't be in here."

"I got tired of hearing you drop the soap. You don't want me here, tell me to leave."

He snorted softly. "When did you start doing what you were told?"

"Touché," she laughed. "Now hold still." She was surprised when he actually followed her instructions. She grabbed the bottle of shampoo and squirted some into her hand before attacking his matted hair with a vengeance. Even with him angling his head a little, she had to tiptoe in order to scrub his scalp thoroughly. Lather, rinse, repeat. After the third go-round, his hair actually felt pretty clean, so she turned her attention to the rest of him.

Cordy stepped out of the shower just long enough to grab a washcloth before lathering it up and attacking his back with it. She took her time, using wet, slippery fingers to trace the lines of his tattoo. She'd seen it often enough when she was bandaging up his occasional injuries, but the flickering candlelight blurred the lines and made them less of a work of art and more of a natural extension of his body. After so many weeks (months?) without any human companionship, she found herself lost in reverie as she studied both the artwork and its canvas: Angel's broad shoulders and sculpted back and spine. When she was finally done admiring him, she reached her arms around him to wash his chest and belly. As she started inching lower, though, his hand abruptly covered hers and held it for a few long seconds.

When he finally spoke, his voice was strained. "I, uh, I think I got it from here."

"I'll leave you to it, then." She got out of the shower and toweled off before grabbing Angel's robe. It was made of black silk and was totally comfortable, even if she did have to roll the sleeves up some.

She went back to the bedroom and dug through his dresser until she found the boxers she'd gotten for Angel as a Halloween gift the previous year. They were black cotton covered with little glow-in-the-dark bats. As she carried them into the bathroom, she found him leaving the shower cabinet with a towel wrapped around his waist.

"Here." She tossed him the shorts.

He caught them handily but refused to meet her eyes, focusing instead on an area about a foot below her face.

"What's the matter, Angel? Bat got your tongue?"

"No," he finally raised his eyes and smiled, "I'm just glad that Gunn didn't get the short straw."

She looked down to find the front of her borrowed robe gaping open a few inches. "Why is it that even undead guys are pervs?" she asked aloud as she pulled the fabric together and cinched the belt tight.

"A man would have to be blind, gay _and_ dead to not notice you, Cordelia," he said with a gleam in his eye, "Anyway, it serves you right for swiping my robe."

She grinned at the compliment. A little male appreciation went a long way, and she sure as hell hadn't gotten any while she'd been away. "I'll bet you never looked this good wearing it."

"That's one bet you'd win." He stooped to put on his shorts and she grabbed his discarded clothes and carried them back to the bedroom. She stuffed them into a trash bag along with the now less-than-fresh bedspread and threw the mess out into the hall. She made the bed up with a clean bedspread from the linen closet, and then tried to figure out what to do about sleeping arrangements.

He obviously couldn't be left alone at any time during the night, and she wasn't about to try sleeping on a chair or on the floor. After the time he'd had, the floor would probably be the lap of luxury for him, but he deserved to sleep in his own bed. He'd just have to deal with having company, at least for tonight. She pulled the sheets down and plumped the pillows before climbing in and stretching out wearily. The food, beer, and blood loss were combining to make her a little woozy.

When he came back out of the bathroom, he stretched out next to her, and they stared at each other silently for a few minutes. He was still thin, but he had filled out a lot in just the past hour. Most of the punctures on his arms had closed, but one of his wrists was still a mess. She opened the nightstand drawer. Sure enough, the first aid kid was still there. She pulled out some tape, ointment, and a roll of gauze and got to work. She had just cut a strip of gauze from the roll when she noticed a shiny pink line next to one of his ribs.

"This one's new, isn't it?"

He looked down and his brow furrowed. "Oh. That's where Connor stabbed me."

"Stabbed you?" She swallowed hard. "He didn't mention that part."

"No?" His voice took on a hard, dangerous edge. "How about the taser, then? Did he mention that?"

"A knife _and_ a taser? What else did the little punk do to you?" His eyes flashed with anger, and she thought again about just how much Connor's betrayal must have hurt him. "Forget it, Angel. I'm in a position to put some serious hurt on him now, so I'm not sure I really want to know."

"I forgive him, Cordy. But I don't trust him, and you shouldn't either."

"I don't, Angel, not anymore. And it breaks my heart. Do you remember the last time we laid together on your bed like this?"

"Yeah," he answered sadly, "I remember. I had to be really careful that night."

"Why was that?"

"You, me, Connor—we were almost like a real family then. It made me happy—happier than I've been in a long time."

She finished bandaging his wrist, put the first aid kit back in the nightstand drawer, and slammed the drawer shut violently before flopping down on the mattress.

He reached to touch her hair tentatively. "What's wrong, Cordy?"

"I was just thinking that I'm not really cut out for all this Florence Henderson stuff."

"You mean Florence Nightingale."

"No, dumbass, I mean Florence Henderson. Sure, it was just a stupid TV show—totally outdated and dorky and if you ever tell anyone about this I'll stake you myself—but I don't think any of the Brady Bunch ever tortured and starved their dad as teens."

His brow furrowed for a moment before he shrugged and went on. "All I know is that he couldn't have asked for a better mother, Cordelia. What happened to him wasn't your fault. I wish I could say it was Wesley's, but, it wasn't, no matter how much a part of me still wants to believe that. But Holtz is dead now, and there's no one left to blame except me."

There was more than enough blame to go around, and pointing fingers at each other, or at themselves, wasn't exactly going to help. "Angel—"

"If Holtz was a monster, it's because I made him one. I destroyed his family, so he destroyed mine. It's got a certain kind of symmetry that only your bosses can fully understand."

"But Connor—"

He put a finger to her lips and she fought down the urge to kiss it. "I don't want to talk about him anymore. Tomorrow is soon enough." He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. "You smell good."

She let herself enjoy his touch for a few seconds before turning to face him and pretending to eye him suspiciously. "Oh yeah? What exactly are we talking about here, the Chanel kind of good, or the O negative kind of good, 'cause inquiring minds want to know."

"Don't worry. You smell like you, and me, mixed together, and I like it. I could eat, but I'm not really hungry yet."

"Okay. But if I start smelling like a happy meal, you'll let me know, right?"

"You got it." He planted a soft kiss on her temple and she relaxed even more against his body until he asked, "Am I ready to hear about what happened with Groo now?"

She pulled herself gently from his arms to sit back upright. Groo was just the latest in a long line of failed relationships, and she really didn't want to have to rehash the past, but Angel needed to know the truth. "Like I said, he left and I let him, because that's what was best for both of us. He realized before I did that he wasn't what I was really looking for in a man, not anymore. I spent most of my life waiting for Prince Charming to come and sweep me off my feet, and you know what?"

Angel raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"Just about the time that he finally showed up, I realized that I'm not a princess anymore. And I don't _want_ to be a princess."

"Then what do you want to be?" he asked cautiously.

"I want to be what I was when I was with you—seer, champion, whatever you want to call it. I want to keep fighting the good fight." She paused to take a deep breath and chose her next words very carefully. "And I want to do it with you. I thought I could do it on my own, and I thought you would be fine without me. I was wrong on both counts, Angel, and I hope you can forgive me."

His eyes were filled with so much warmth and trust that, just for a second, she forgot all about the demon lurking somewhere behind them. "There isn't anything to forgive," he said softly. "But where do we go from here?"

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On how you feel about me." It took him a second, but he remembered.

"That was what you said on the phone that night." He took her hand in his. "You said you thought you had good news, but it depended on how I felt about you."

"And how do you feel, Angel?"

His eyes glowed and he hesitated for just a second before taking her arm gently and pulling her back down to lay on the bed next to him. He lowered his face to hers and his kiss was soft, apologetic, a question that she answered by running her fingers through his hair and opening her mouth to him. He kissed her harder then, his lips and tongue taking her breath away. He left her just as abruptly with nothing but a lingering taste of mint in her mouth and a deep rush of heat low in her belly.

His voice was rough with emotion. "I feel like it's a damn good thing that I'm in no condition to follow up on that. Good night, Cordy." And with that, he turned his back on her and went to sleep.

It was a long time before she could follow.

**End of Chapter 5**


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Not my sandbox. I just enjoy playing in it.

Still doing heavy editing on Chapter 7, so this is the last new chapter for another week or so.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

Angel's eyes snapped open abruptly, and the first thing he noticed was a feeling of warmth. Vampires were never warm. The sensation always required an application of direct heat—in this case, Cordelia's body pressed firmly against his back. He thought about turning around to see her, but he didn't want to wake her, so he simply luxuriated in her presence—the sound of her heartbeat, the gentle puff of her breath between his shoulders, the way one of her legs had gotten tangled between his. Reassured, he closed his eyes again and burrowed his face into the pillow a little more tightly, hoping that, if this was a dream, he would never wake up.

Some time later, he did wake up, and he knew immediately that something was wrong. One wall of his bedroom had been replaced by a portal, which rotated sluggishly in violent yellow and orange hues.

Cordelia bolted upright in the bed as a demon emerged from the portal and said, "I'm sorry, but we have to go."

Angel rolled quickly out of bed and drew himself up, all the while wondering just how menacing a person could look while wearing shorts covered with cartoon bats. He grabbed his sword from the dresser and held it loosely by his side. "I kicked your ass before, Skip. I bet I can do it again."

The demon held his hands up in apparent surrender. "Hey, if it were up to me, I'd leave you to your..." he gestured at their state of undress, "...whatever this is." He waved a hand at the slowly swirling portal. "But it's not, and I either bring her back, or answer to them."

"I'm not leaving him, Skip," Cordelia said firmly. "Not now, not ever again." Angel stood a little taller at her words. "I worked my ass off helping the Powers, and then they allow something like this to happen without letting me help? Tell them I quit, effective now."

The demon sighed and glared at her like a teacher dealing with a difficult child. "You can't _resign_ this position, Cordelia. It isn't allowed."

"Why not?" Angel asked. "Are the Powers That Be like the Mafia or something? Once you're in, you're theirs for life?"

"No!" Skip looked first shocked and then thoughtful before turning back to Cordelia. "Well, maybe. They've given you power and they're going to insist that you use it to achieve their ends."

She put her hands on her hips angrily. "What would I have to do for them to make me a 'lower being' again?"

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It would have to be something serious. A gross misuse of your powers would probably do the trick."

"And what exactly would constitute a gross misuse of my powers?" Cordy asked.

Skip sighed and snorted softly. "If I have to explain it to you, you're not as smart as I think."

"Oh. OH!" Cordelia put her hand up to her mouth as though smothering a smile. "You don't have to explain. And thanks, Skip."

Skip may not have needed to produce an explanation, but Angel certainly needed to hear one. He never got it.

Cordy walked around the bed toward him, took the sword from his hand, and tossed it onto the bed before taking him into her arms.

"Cordelia, what—" Before he could finish, there was a blinding flash and he felt the earth tilt beneath him.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying on a beach. On a bright, sunny day. In full panic mode, he started to launch himself toward the porch of a white, weathered beach house a few yards away, but he knew he'd never make it before he combusted.

"Wait." Cordy's hand was firm on his arm. "The sun won't hurt you. I made sure of that."

He stopped abruptly. No tingling, no smoking, no burning. Okay, then. "A little warning would've been nice. Where are we?"

"Temporal fold. It's kind of like a wrinkle in time and space. Don't you love it?"

He looked around. The place was absolutely beautiful. The blue-green surf lapped gently at a sugar-sand beach. Coconut palms lined the shore above the high-tide line. And as far as he could tell, they were completely alone. No matter which direction he looked in, though, at a distance of about a hundred yards, the vista seemed to dissolve into an indistinct haze.

He looked down to find a view that was altogether different, but no less spectacular. He and Cordelia were lying on matching beach towels, and she was wearing a purple bikini that covered less of her body than a Kleenex would have. The sunlight revealed just how hard she'd been working during her stint as a higher being. The muscles in her arms and shoulders weren't much bigger, but they had the definition that came with hard use.

"Wow," he smiled. "It's got a great view."

"Wow right back at you."

He suddenly noticed that she was checking him out in return and was horrified to find out that he was wearing a tight black Speedo that didn't cover much more than her suit did. He hurriedly rolled back onto his stomach and rested his head on folded arms. "What exactly do you mean by a 'temporal fold'? Is it real? Are we real, in here?"

"Well, yes and no—you and I, we're real enough, but this place isn't. Even higher beings need rest, so I have the power to make one of these—a sanctuary—for just that purpose. After I've made it, I turn it over to the Powers to maintain its construction while I recharge."

"Well, can't they just turn it off now and kick us back out?"

"Not while I'm still exerting control it. I'm abusing the power they gave me by using it for personal gain, and, with any luck, they're going to be royally pissed off."

He frowned, confused. "This is nice, but they were doing it for you anyway, so how does this qualify as personal gain?"

"It's you and me, Angel. In this place, time has no meaning. Hell, reality has no meaning. And in here, you and I are safe and, well, you're grounded, if you know what I mean."

He had absolutely no idea what she was getting at and his face must have shown it.

Cordelia sighed softly. "Your soul, Angel. This is my world, and the curse doesn't apply here. Your soul is safe, no matter what happens." She blushed and looked away nervously. "Not that anything has to happen, of course, but if something did happen to happen, well, you'd still be, you know, you."

This was so surreal that it boggled the mind. If he understood her correctly, she was saying that he could have—

"Sex," she said impatiently. "Angel, the subtlety is obviously lost on you, so I'll just say it straight out. You can have sex here and not worry about the whole desouling thing."

He had understood correctly, then, but he was still stunned. "Cordelia. I don't know if this is such a good—"

"You don't want me." Her disappointment was etched in every line of her body.

"No. I mean yes. I mean—that's not it. That is so..._not_... it." He suddenly noticed that a few loose grains of sand had magically adhered themselves to the smooth skin between her breasts and he fought to drag his gaze back up to her eyes. "It's complicated, though. Look at my track record for just a minute. Every time I've let this happen, there have been huge consequences. Darla conceived Connor. Before that, there was—"

"Buffy."

He winced at the bitterness in her voice.

"Do you still love her, Angel?"

"Buffy is brave, and beautiful, and complicated, and one of the strongest women I've ever known."

"Hey, getting a complex here."

"Don't." He squeezed her hand lightly. "You're all those things too. Buffy and I fell in love before she ever knew what I was. By the time she found out, maybe it was already too late for us. Cordy, I forced myself to leave Sunnydale because I knew that she could never ask me to. I had to make her give up being with me so that she could deal with everything else in her life: slaying, friends, family, school. But you knew what I was before you ever started to care about me. You knew the risks and you knew exactly what I was capable of. And then you fought like hell to stay with me anyway."

"Well, I knew exactly what Angelus was capable of, but I also saw the goodness in that undead heart of yours." She placed her palm firmly against his chest. "I saw how much you cared about people and how much you would give up in order to help them. And I saw how much I changed as a result of working with you." She shook her head and smiled. "You know, I used to think the height of success was a fancy car, a hot guy on my arm, and a multimillion dollar open-ended contract. Right now, one out of three is looking pretty good."

He couldn't resist baiting her. "The Powers gave you a new car?"

"Dork." She elbowed him hard. "I'd do it again, Angel, in a heartbeat."

He dropped a kiss onto her shoulder. "I know you would. I just can't help thinking that maybe we should wait."

"Wait for what? I mean, if I knew I was going to make it long enough, then maybe. We know the prophecies say you're going to be around at least until you Shanshu, however long that takes, but there's no guarantee that I'll still be here when you do."

His chest constricted suddenly at the thought."Don't say that. I don't know what I'd do without you. I'd lose my way, Cordelia."

"Of course you would," she said, smiling hesitantly at him. "You may be a vampire, but you're also a man, and men never stop to ask for directions, especially big, gorgeous, creature-of-the-night-type men."

Her lips pursed thoughtfully for a moment and he fought down the urge to kiss them. "You really think I'm gorgeous?"

"Pffft." She gave him a thorough, lingering once-over. "Do I have to dignify that with a response? But, anyway, I'm not sure that we can afford to wait."

"Why not?"

"The Powers can't influence anything that goes on in here, but they can see. I could have brought you here to help you recover. That's a noble reason, not a selfish one. If I don't do something to royally discredit myself with them, I'm guessing they'll make me leave again as soon as we go back."

"How long do we have?"

"I'm not sure." She looked out at the ocean. "Maybe a few hours. Not more than that."

"When we go back, will we remember this?"

"That all depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On how memorable we make it." She kissed his collarbone softly.

"So what happens afterward?" he asked.

"With luck, I get to stay in L.A., and you and I get to be together again. Maybe not so much with the um, physical togetherness, but we could still work together, and talk, and be friends, right?"

Cordelia looked so eager, so hopeful, and he couldn't imagine letting her down. "I hope so."

She bit her lip nervously. "Let's make the best of it then, because this can't happen again."

"I know." He knew she was thinking about Angelus and the devastation he left in his wake. It wouldn't come to that. He wouldn't let it. "Think it would be okay if we held hands once in a while when we got back?" He took one of her hands in his and used his thumb to rub small circles in her palm.

Her eyes closed to slits and she shivered lightly. "Not if you're going to do _that_."

"Then let's walk." He kept his grip on her hand and used it to pull her up to her feet. He led her down to the waterline and they strolled along it, hand-in-hand, for several minutes. The water was cool against his feet and the sun was warm on his back, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this carefree. He stooped to pick up a seashell. "Is this place always a beach?"

"Depends on what I'm in the mood for," she shrugged. "Sometimes I choose a lake house or a place in the mountains. I could make this a Swiss chalet, complete with roaring fireplace and bearskin rug. What do you think?"

He tossed the shell back into the water and pulled her into his arms. Instead of being distracted by the way her breasts pressed firmly against his chest, he reveled in it. "I think you belong in the sun, and I really like seeing you in a bathing suit." With that, he pulled loose the ties on the back of her bikini top. "Or not." Without releasing her, he eased the skimpy top out from between them and tossed it into the water, where the next wave took it out of sight.

She cocked her head and smiled. "You know, I could just whip up another one right now."

"Yeah, but you won't," he grinned.

"What makes you think so?"

"Because you know how beautiful you are, and you want me to see it too."

"You're right," she laughed as she took a step back and away from him.

Oh, she was a vision—gold and glowing and practically naked—and just an armslength away. He closed his eyes tightly and clenched his fists.

She stepped back into his arms and put her head on his shoulder. "What's wrong, Angel?"

He struggled to find the right words. "This is so perfect. I just keep expecting to wake up in the box again."

"Then I'll just have to take your mind off of it." She put her arms around her neck and pulled his head down to hers.

If last night's kiss had been a question, this one was an affirmation. There was nothing hesitant about the way she kissed him this time, and he grunted softly as she took his lower lip between hers and pinched it gently with her teeth. Her lips and tongue moved against his insistently, inviting him, no _begging_ him to lose control and follow suit.

Turnabout was fair play and he took her mouth ruthlessly, putting one hand in the small of her back as the other cradled the back of her neck. He'd been gentler than this with Buffy, more considerate of her age and inexperience. But there was something about Cordelia that spurred him on and made him want to prove himself to her, to show her that he was every bit as much a man as the Groosalugg. Hell, he was _more_ than a man.

He could have kissed her like this for hours, but she pulled herself reluctantly away from him with a breathy, "Wow." A sudden breeze caught her hair and she lifted a hand to push it away from her face. "That worked way better than I expected. If I'd known that was all it took to keep you from brooding, I would've tried it a long time ago."

He kissed her again, and this time he kept it slow and sweet, breaking it off when she tried to deepen it. "I guess my secret's out. You won't tell anyone, will you?" he teased.

She used her index finger to draw a symbol over her left breast. "Cross my heart."

_And hope to die._ He swallowed hard, hoping like hell that she knew what she was doing. A pained expression crossed her face. "What's wrong?"

She put a hand to her head. "This is taking more energy than I expected. We may not have too much time left."

He looked back up the beach at the beach house. "You're sure?"

Cordelia gave him the frustrated glare he'd seen her wear a hundred times. A thousand, maybe. "If you make me beg, I swear that I'll stake you myself when we're—"

She never got the chance to finish. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the beach house. When they got inside, he found that it was a single room, furnished all in white, with long, billowing curtains that moved restlessly in front of the open windows. He deposited her gently on the four-poster bed and climbed in alongside her. Angel took his time and let his fingertips roam over her body as he noted every place that his touch brought a sigh, every place that elicited a giggle or a flinch. He knew he'd never get to use the information again, but he wanted to remember, wanted to relive the time again and again because the memory was all he'd have left after they went back. This time, though, he wouldn't be the only one burdened with the memories. This time, when he looked at Cordelia, she'd remember too. He tried not to think too much about what those memories might do to them later.

Her skin was unbelievably soft, and the more he caressed it, the more sensitive she became. When she finally reached a point where every touch of his hands or his mouth brought a gasp and a slow, deep shudder, he rolled her beneath him before noticing a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. He lifted his head for a moment and saw another flash of lightning in the darkening sky. A fresh gust of wind brought the scents of ozone and imminent rain into the bungalow. "Looks like we're in for a storm. Your doing?"

"I guess," she panted. "I'm not doing it on purpose, but—" she stopped abruptly and arched her back as he moved roughly against her. The lightning flashed again and a distant rumble of thunder echoed across the empty beach. "I'm starting to have a hard time focusing."

"It's about to get a little harder." He used his hands to lift her hips and pull her a little more tightly to him and she stifled a moan by biting at her lower lip. She was so close, and he couldn't wait to see the look on her face when she finally let go. "It's okay. I've got you." He buried his face in her hair and it crackled beneath his lips as he whispered, "I love you, Cordy." The small hairs on his arms abruptly stood on end. He could feel the power coursing through her, coursing through _them_, and suddenly he was _there_ and all the light and energy of the universe crashed into him. Deaf and blind, Angel gasped for air that he didn't need as he tried to cope with the onslaught on his senses.

So _that_ was what it was like to be struck by lightning. His vision and hearing returned gradually over the next several seconds.

"I'm sorry." Cordelia's arms tightened around him and she kissed the corner of his jaw. "I'm so sorry, Angel. Are you okay?"

"I think so," he said, "but what the hell was that?"

"I don't know, but I think this is the first time that I've ever been grateful that you're not quite, you know, human. I think it would have probably killed anyone else." He rolled his weight off of her and she put her head on his shoulder and ran her hands lightly over his chest. "I can't hold on much longer, Angel. What if they take me away again?"

"I won't let them," he said with a bravado that he wished he actually felt. "I won't. It's okay. You can let it go."

Her eyelids fluttered once, then again, then slowly came to rest against her skin. He gathered her tightly to him and pressed his lips to her forehead. As her breathing grew slow and regular, he noticed that the walls and ceiling of the beach house were becoming transparent. Moonlight filtered into the room and then began to flicker fitfully as everything around them lost cohesion. The bed beneath them gave way with a sickening jolt and they fell for a very long time.

**End of Chapter 6**


End file.
